History

The Diquís people inhabited the alluvial delta of the Térraba and Sierpe rivers in what is now southern Costa Rica, part of the Chibchan cultural sphere — a network of interconnected societies stretching from Honduras to Colombia. Between roughly 600 and 1500 CE they carved spheres from gabbro boulders transported from mountain river beds using wooden rollers, ropes, and organised communal labour. The shaping involved pecking and grinding with harder stone tools, then polishing to achieve near-perfect spherical form.

Once placed, the spheres were arranged in precise geometric patterns — lines, triangles, and parallelograms — in front of the houses of high-ranking chiefs, possibly aligned with astronomical events. No contemporary written records explain their purpose. The oral traditions of the descendant Brunca (Boruca) people say only that the spheres were made by divine intervention and that the ancestors knew the secret. The knowledge was lost after the Spanish conquest dismantled the chiefdom society.

The site suffered severe looting during banana-plantation expansion in the 1930s–40s, when United Fruit Company workers moved spheres and attempted to dynamite some open, believing gold was hidden inside. Many spheres now stand in gardens and public spaces across Costa Rica.